KMovies reviewed here... The Killing FieldsReviewed by Bart Stevens, Pepperdine University The twenty-five year involvement of America in the affairs of Vietnam and the rest of Southeast Asia affected millions of lives. The numbers involved, both monetarily and in bodies--whether discussing the number of lives slaughtered, the number of lives forced into being refugees, and the number of wounded, are staggering. Over 50,000 American soldiers were killed, since 1975 over 1.4 million refugees have left Vietnam and during the reign of the communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, over 3 million people were killed. The problem with statistics is that they don't show the grim realities of war; the fear, tears, hunger or blood. "The Killing Fields" is about blood in Cambodia, and, at the same time, is about friendship. It is a strange combination, but the reality of war produces that kind of combination. Cambodia was not part of the conflict in Vietnam when it started in 1950. The war in Southeast Asia was a battle between the National Communists under Ho Chi Minh and the colonial power of the French. America entered the conflict for many reasons, but two primary reasons were the Truman Doctrine of containing Communism and the protection of trade with Japan and other eastern ports of call. Cambodia was a monarchy ruled by Prince Norodon Sihanouk who kept the country neutral for two decades. The end of the 1960s brought two major events to end Sihanouk's neutrality. "Operation Breakfast," the first event, was the secret bombing by the United States B-52s of military bases on the South Vietnamese border. The second was the political coup of Sihanouk placing Prime Minister Lon Nol into power. Nol dissolved the monarchy and proclaimed Cambodia a republic. The government forces of Lon Nol fighting the Communist Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot and the bombing and insurgence by both North Vietnam and a U.S.-backed South Vietnam provides the background for the movie, "The Killing Fields." The movie was based on an article written by Sydney Schanberg for the New York Times Magazine in 1980. The article was entitled, "The Death and Life of Dith Pran." Schanberg was the New York Times reporter in Cambodia covering the "secret war" of Nixon's administration. Dith Pran was a local journalist in Phenom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia, who became guide, translator and friend of Schanberg. The relationship between these two men is not fully developed in the film. In fact, one can receive an uncomfortable feeling about the "friendship." The film portrays Pran as an invaluable servant. Andrew Kopkind in is review for Nation magazine says, "Schanberg would not have lasted a week in Cambodia without Pran..." This point is well made in the film by Pran pleading with young members of the Khmer Rouge to spare the lives of Schanberg and three other journalists. Nevertheless, in the beginning of the movie Pran is verbally punished when he fails to meet Schanberg at the airport, but he is praised when he bribes the right people to get a story. Again, in Kopkind's article, Schanberg is reported as giving Pran "more personal power, political independence, and emotional integrity" that what is seen in the movie. Sydney does show some concern for Pran in the movie by arranging for Pran and his family to be evacuated along with the officials of the U.S. Embassy. Much to the approval of Schanberg, Pran stays with him and only sends his family. Schanberg and Pran both knew that to get the story about the new regime, Pran had to stay. Therefore, in the second half of the movie, one is never very clear of Sydney's motives for writing 500 letters to relief organizations in Southeast Asia attempting to locate Pran: was it guilt or was it the loss of a friendship which accounts for his great concern? This question is never answered in the film. There are a number of problems with the film on a historical level. The first is actually a question which was never answered involving the accidental bombing of a Cambodian city by a B-52. All the audience is allowed to see is Americans attempting to keep the facts a secret. The movie complies with America's goal in keeping the facts a secret in that it never explained why or how it happened. All the audience finds out is that the story made the front page of the New York Times. Secondly the New Yorker Magazine says that, "...there are fictional episodes in which Pran, entrusted with the child of a disaffected Khmer Rouge official, tenderly carries the little boy in his arms over dangerous mountain passes." It seems that the director felt he could not rely on Pran finding a way to get out of Cambodia without the help of the Khmer Rouge. History tells us that this wasn't the case. The Khmer Rouge did not aid in his escape, it was the Vietnamese. The film shows Pran dodge a few Vietnamese tanks before standing on the Thai border with freedom in sight. In fact, Pran did spend about three years in a work/reeducation camp where he had to hide his education and occupational background. Pran also escaped from the camp and made a desperate run across the country. Pran was saved, though, by the invasion of the Vietnamese in 1979. The Vietnamese then made him governor of Siem Reap, a Cambodian town. It was not until the Vietnamese invaders learned of his affiliation with the New York Times that Pran made his flee to freedom, Thailand. Another small error was the award Schanberg won. Schanberg won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism for the articles he wrote while in Cambodia. In the film, the award is the Journalist of the Year Award. But the biggest mistake found in the film was that the blame for the problems in Cambodia and the subsequent Khmer Rouge bloodbath is placed solely on the Nixon administration's "secret war." An event of this magnitude cannot be given such a simple explanation. Do "seven billion dollars' worth of bombs" provoke a man to kill 3 million of his own countrymen? Economics, psychological make-up of leaders, political ideology, and culture all played a part in what took place in Cambodia. It wasn't the fallacies in "The Killing Fields" that are memorable. Instead it is the images and the haunting sounds that effect the viewer. The film showed the plight of men, women, and children in war-wrecked Cambodia. The haunting scream of a child, an entire hospital filled with wounded and dead children, or the march of the entire capitol city's population into the countryside, these images are what tell the true story. "The Killing Fields" is not a completely truthful account, but it is a movie that shows truth. The atrocities which took place in Cambodia could not fully be portrayed on the screen, but this film is the best attempt to date. The film didn't have a hero who came blasting his way into the country to save his friend; instead, the hero was a slight, quiet, determined man who was forced to save himself. The statement which epitomizes the time period that the film portrays was never, unfortunately, said in the movie. Dith Pran made the statement in the New York Times Magazine article, "in the water wells the bodies were like soup bones in broth, and you could always tell the killing grounds because the grass grew taller and greener." This is the feeling given to the viewer in "The Killing Fields." Back to top. KoyaanisqatsiReviewed by Johnathan A. Freedman, Syracuse University The film begins with religious icons and a chant and ends the same way. In between, the viewer is transported without narration on an epic journey, first through the natural environment and then through the social landscape that humankind has created in the United States. Powerful images flash in front of you--some speeded up and others slowed down to give the viewer an uncanny sense of structure--in nature and society. The score by Philip Glass provides continuity to these images of cinematographer Ron Fricke, while the design and direction of Godfrey Reggio provides conceptual power to Koyaanisqatsi. Koyaanisqatsi is a Hopi word with several related meanings: crazy life, life in turmoil, life disintegrating, life out of balance, and a state of life that calls for another way of being. The images in this film powerfully illustrate these related themes derived from the word. I use this film frequently in my teaching of sociology. I find it makes a powerful introduction to the introductory course and the course in social problems, and show all or part during the first class. The film is long and proves boring to some students, but many are excited by it. I have used excerpts from the second part on social landscape to illustrate social problems generally, and urban patterns and structures specifically. I've had students make lists of the social problems they notice in the film. The film is excellent in moving students and even their teachers away from self-centeredness to an examination of alternative perspectives on everyday life. It expands capacity for critical thinking about people in society and our dual capacity for greatness and destruction. Back to top.
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